To Infinity
by Hekateras
Summary: "Leave them be. Forever," a voice would echo, if it could. And then all is still and silent once more. / Part IV of the Full Circle series.


It is cold here, deep in the bowels of the Earth.

Cold and silent. Take a step backward, a step out of this partial dimension, and the heat and pressure will liquify you before you can scream, dissolve you in the languidly moving mass of viscous stone. And that is how it should be.

But not _here_.

This place is isolated – so isolated, in fact, that the very energy in it is leached away into the emptiness around. There is no light, and sound exists only as a thought.

It is a good thing etheral beings do not need to breathe.

Neither do occult ones.

"_Leave them be. Forever_," a voice would echo, if it could, as the presence projecting it is pulled back in with a rush, like an unruly child caught leaning out of a window.

And then all is still and silent once more.

.

.

.

.

Much later, a hand reaches out to touch a cavernous wall, fingers brushing over the surface until it is smooth as a mirror.

"Where are they now?" the voice asks, and from a dimension just out of reach, another answers, vibrations rippling across the surface,

_THE HUMANS HAVE BEGUN EXPANDING THEIR COLONIES ONTO THE ISLANDS, LORD. THEY ARE WATCHING OVER THEM._

There is a silence that, in this immeasurable place, could well have lasted for an age.

"_Show me_," the voice says softly.

The surface transforms, rippling and vibrating until it is glazed over with images.

Two pairs of wings, one dark and one luminous, over a blinding ocean. Sand, crumbling and flying and caught in strands of hair, trapped beneath clothes. Foliage lush with red and golden and emerald hues, parted to clear the way. Days spent in the sun, and nights under the stars, in the heat of a fire made for comfort, not necessity – like so many other things.

The presence watches hungrily for a time.

It is both familiar and not, blurring the lines between dream and memory, imagination and reality. Mercy and agony in perfect unison, like so many other of Heaven's punishments.

The figures sprawl and laze about on a rooftop in an awkward tangle of limbs and wings.

Zirah watches a while longer, then disperses the image with a thought.

It is hardly proper, after all.

.

.

.

.

"_Report,_" he says disinterestedly to the image of the high-ranking demons.

They speak for a while, recounting detail after detail, and he listens in silence. He has little to say. Hell does tend to run itself, for the most part.

When they speak of religion, and a new faction in the Church that advocates for a merciful, compassionate God, he blinks and focuses, intrigued. "_Tell me more_," he demands, and they do. They speak of the movement as it first arose, of saints and martyrs and the opposition it has met, and how it is starting to flourish, the fruits of one careful campaign after another.

Zirah smiles, gentle and brittle, and the demons shrink back in fear, safe as they are on the other side of the cell.

"A merciful and compassionate God. Well, I'll be damned," he chuckles. "Ensure that people see this for the lie it is," he tells them, and then they are dismissed.

He watches then, watches the humans as they are torn one way and another by their petty squabbles and wars, as they do their damnedest to make sure their stolen gift of immortality doesn't mean a thing, and it is a bitter triumph, seeing them so different and so unchanging.

He watches kings, and peasants, and through the eyes of animals puny and great, and he watches an agent of Heaven and a demon of Hell as they dance around their responsibilities like leaves on the wind, pulling humanity's strings this way and that.

The splinter faction survives, but it has effectively divided the whole movement in two, weakening their side. He should be watching when it is granted official status, but his gaze is elsewhere, caught by the glint of sunlight in ruby eyes, dark hair ruffled by the breeze, face tucked away into the embrace of bright wings.

He flinches and the vision vanishes.

_Pity, it was just getting interesting_, a disappointed voice drawls on the edge of his consciousness.

Zirah spends uncounted hours straining his ears to the silence, but there is nothing else.

.

.

.

He watches as the world flirts with the idea of animal gods, entire pantheons emerging to fill every possible niche. What triumph there is rings hollow, especially as he knows it is only temporary. Heaven has never had much patience for setbacks.

War ripples through the land again like a red wave, on a scale he has not seen since _Before_. By now, he knows exactly what to expect, how to interpret a human's words when they say things like _ideology,_ or _faith_, or _honour_, or _liberation_. He calls his demons to him again and they listen, hanging onto every word with reverence.

"Death is not our intent," he tells them. "_Despair _is our intent. Bitterness, fear, abandonment. The things that will not kill, but condemn them, and wrest their souls free of the Enemy's grasp. _Do_ remember that before you do anything _crude_."

They bow and grovel and promise to within an inch of their lives that his will shall be done, _Lord,_ and then he is alone again.

He wonders often why they listen to him. What he has done to earn such unquestioning obedience.

As he watches the humans, he is struck with recognition of that all too familiar yearning for a cause, for easy answers. For every fool satisfied with the _ineffable_, there is another who wants nothing more to have_ some_ answer provided, some semblance of purpose they can _understand_.

They are all fools, in the end. All purpose is something that must be _given_. He will never accept such a gift from anyone, ever again.

_Impressive_, the faint voice thrums again, _The 'scary nice' routine doesn't usually work that well on them._

Zirah freezes, but the voice is gone as suddenly as it came. There is a heavy, timeless silence now that could well have persisted since the dawn of time, with only fickle memory suggesting otherwise.

It's only to be expected, after all.

.

.

.

The _angel_ is missing.

Zirah notices it right away from the fretful, dejected way the demon holds himself, eyes casting over the city with its homes and brothels and temples and looking very much alone.

A discorporation, most likely. Common enough in their line of work, but it's the first time he's seen one without the other since... well, _since_.

He studies the wide-eyed, helpless look, the frown lines and the tense mouth, the expression far more familiar than the ever-adaptable face itself.

He slowly extends a hand to brush his fingers against the smooth stone, splaying and relaxing them against the image.

_You know, that can't be terribly healthy._

Zirah blinks and lets his hand drop and the image vanish. Then he frowns in confusion. Something about the voice felt different this time. _Closer_, somehow.

Hesitantly, he rests his hand against the smooth stone again. "Hello?" he tries.

There is a silence again, but it feels surprised this time, and after a few uncountable moments the voice resumes,

_And it talks back! I was starting to worry about that. No no, not you. Shush._

Zirah spends a few moments frowning thoughtfully. Then he leans in against the stone, focusing himself on the voice. "You are late," he says calmly.

_What makes you think that?_

"I have been in here for many ages, you see," Zirah says conversationally. "I do believe I am long overdue in the 'hearing voices' department."

_Oh... Oh very good, yes, that was quite imaginative. A notch above the usual in entertainment value, that's for sure. Yes, I know, that's what I just said_, the voice speaks excitedly even as Zirah strains to listen.

"The usual?"

_Oh yes, the others tend to get a bit predictable after a while. Perfectly logical, of course. Doesn't make it any less boring._

"There are others here?"

_Maybe. They tend to go away sooner or later, it's hard to say why. Obviously, this isn't the best place to put much faith in sanity._

"I suppose not," Zirah agrees_._

_Oh look, now I've gone and worn myself out. I nee-ed to... to-_

The voice blinks out. Zirah stares at the silent wall for a while and sighs.

.

.

.

Much later, Zirah is watching the images again. The demon is still alone. It is hard to say how long it has been, but he seems to have decided that causing mischief and mayhem might speed things up a little.

He travels from town to town, starting strife and scandals, then zips across the ocean to where ancient statues of winged serpents still gleam with tarnished gold, to reignite an old religion. He is marginally successful and distracts himself for a while with that, drowning himself in luxury and adoration once again.

With every dawn, he perches on a temple and stares at the horizon, waiting.

_Good god, doesn't this thing have any other channels?_

Zirah starts and is very still for a moment. Then he relaxes and creeps closer to the wall with a grim, resigned smile. "Hello again," he says.

_You remember me? That doesn't always happen. You know, I'm really not sure what to make of this. I just can't see where you're coming from._

"What do you mean, pray tell?_"_ Zirah asks politely.

_Sentiment. It'll drive you mad, you know, in a place like this. Madder. Haha. Our private joke, eh?_

Zirah says nothing to that.

_So who is he, then? Old flame? Is that why you think you're in here?_

_"_What do you mean, 'think'?_"_

_Well, we've all got our stories, don't we? Or what we think are our stories. Got a little too involved with the wrong type of underling, Nephelim-style, is that it?_

Zirah once again flinches at the familiar term, but of course, there's nothing truly unexpected about that.

"Not precisely," he says sadly.

_Odd, though, he looks kind of familiar..._

"Of course he does," Zirah mutters bitterly. "_You are, after all, a figment of my imagination,_" he says, as politely as he can manage.

_That stung. And we were just getting to know each other,_ the voice says cheerfully.

"In that case, why are _you_ in here?" Zirah says pointedly.

_Why.. why am I? I am... What, like you don't know! Oh yes, of course you'd ask something like that. Now hold on there, a gentleman doesn't kiss and tell. Oh no, no, of course not. I had nothing to do with that. Hah, you don't frighten me! And you can wait your damn turn, sicko. If one of those angels should happen to Fall, three billion bottles of beer on the wall... Take one down, pass it around, 'till it runs and runs and don't wanna be found, pluck it and shred it and hide it Below, twenty-five billion seventy million nine hundred thousand... crap... forty-... five? ...Bottles of beer on the wall..._

The voice rambles on. Zirah slowly shuffles away from the wall, buries his head in his hands. Somehow, he cannot quite tune it out.

.

.

.

.

It is an uneventful time for Earth - not that most of the creatures there would share that opinion. A meteor strike is not simply something that can be brushed off, and gone is a healthy third of the world's population. Including, amusingly enough, the ones who worshipped the winged serpent.

Zirah wonders idly what He is playing at, and if He's aware of how transparent and insecure it looks.

_Oh come on, is this frickin' Animal Planet? _the voice complains unexpectedly as gigantic flocks of birds flee across a smoke-streaked sky.

Zirah says nothing.

_What, is the pretty red-eyed demon banging a crocodile or something, that you don't wanna watch? Or is he being all touchy-feeling with the angel again, because that's actually pretty decent to look at, ironic pun fully intended, you understand..._

"It doesn't rhyme, you know," Zirah says with long-suffering patience.

_What doesn't?_

Zirah hesitates a bit. "...Below and... wall," he says reluctantly. "It is the very definition of a false rhyme, in fact."

_Aren't _you_ well-educated, eh?_

Zirah stays silent and tries to remember the last time he thought about books.

_Well, yeah, I guess it could use some work. Doesn't make it any less of an earworm, though, now does it? _the voice chirps with sadistic glee. Zirah winces and says nothing. _Would you like to hear more? Cause I've got more. I've had lots and lots of time to come up with more..._

"I'd rather you didn't."

_Hey, you don't remember by any chance? Was I on twenty-five billion fifty-nine thousand seventy-six bottles of beer on the wall, or on thirty-three billion sixty six million six hundred-and-eight bottles of beer on the wall?_

"I'm afraid not."

_Crap. I'll have to start over, then. Again. You have to do these things right, there's no point in it otherwise. No there isn't. No, of course, stop asking..._

There is a thoughtful, menacing silence, before the voice launches in again, in what, anywhere else, would be an approximation of a roaring baritone.

_What shall we do with the fallen angel? What shall we do with the fallen angel? What shall we do with the fallen angel early in the mo-o-orning?_

Zirah sighs and settles in to watch the birds again. They have thin long legs and beautiful, sweeping dark wings. Almost like...

_Shave his feathers with a rusty razor, shave his feathers with a rusty razor, shave his feathers with a rusty razor early in the morning... Way hey and up she rises, way hey and up she rises..._

Zirah straightens as he spots the demon, great wings flapping desperately as he follows the birds to safety. Clever enough, certainly, but the forest fire is spreading too quickly, smoke and scalding heat rising in dark plumes.

_Smack 'im to the ground until he's tender, smack 'im to the ground until he's tender, smack 'im to the ground until his tender early in the mo-o-o-orning..._

Zirah finds his fists tightening as the demon's wings catch on fire.

_Toss 'im in a bonfire 'till he's crispy, toss 'im in a bonfire 'till he's crispy, toss 'im in a bonfire 'till he's crispy early in the mo-o-orning..._

The demon screams in panic and tries to bat away the flames.

_Stick 'im with a pitchfork 'till he's sorry, stick 'im with a pitchfork 'till he's-_

"Stop that," he snaps.

_You sure? I've got... lemme count... At least four hundred more of these. I'm aiming for a round number. You know, sixes and all._

Zirah bites his lip as he watches a particularly painfully-looking discorporation. It's temporary, of course, but...

_You could help, you know._

"What?" he mutters, distracted. There's no way all that fire could be holy, is there?

_Help me come up with more of these. No, not you, yours are just awful, no sense of pacing at all. You might be able to come up with something good, though, angel._

Zirah stiffens. "Don't call me that."

_Right, you're right. Sorry. It's your vibes, you were getting a bit too 'guardian angel' on that little demon, know what I mean? Might want to relax a little. It's not like you can go anywhere._

Zirah presses a hand to the image until it shifts and shows another. The menacing-looking demon looks up at him in surprise.

_AH, LORD. I WAS JUST WORKING._

"I can see that," Zirah says politely, thinking to himself that the maggots are a bit too crass. "Have any of our people, ah, checked in recently?"

_WELL..._ The demon looks down at a ledger constructed of screaming souls. _WE'VE MOSTLY PULLED THEM IN FOR THE DURATION OF THE ROW UPSTAIRS, THOUGH THAT MORONIC BASTARD GLISS CAME SLITHERING THROUGH JUST NOW... YOU WANT ME TO __CALL HIM DOWN TO YOU, LORD?_

Zirah hesitates.

_You could do it, you know. You're king of this playground, he's technically at your beck and call,_ the other voice says thoughtfully.

"_No,_" Zirah says firmly, and turns his gaze back to the flocking birds.

_Pity, _the voice croons._ And why is that, huh?_

Zirah doesn't answer.

_Aw, don't be like that. You're the only decent company I've got._

"...I'm not the one he needs," Zirah murmurs, settling in again.

_Now I'm getting all these noble vibes from you again. Might wanna watch yourself. Never know when the folks Above decide you're not fit for this place anymore, right? Ha! Hahahahaha... You sure you don't wanna help me come up with lines?_

"Yes."

_You don't seem to have an awful lot more than that to do, just saying. Have those apes up above invented television yet?_

"No..." Zirah mutters, wondering why he even bothers to answer.

_Monosyllabic, is it? I can do monosyllabic. Me Tarzan, you Jane. Uh gah uh gah. No no no, drop that, stop, not funny... Never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down... How'd that go again?_

"You've been getting more persistent," Zirah observes absently. "It used to be, I couldn't hear you unless I was close to the mirror, and then you'd grow tired and vanish. Now I seem to hear you nearly all the time."

_Way hey and up she rises, way hey and up she rises, way hey and up she rises early in the mo-o-o-o-orning...!_

_That's what we do with a fallen angel, that's what we do with a fallen angel, that's what we do with a fallen angel early in the mo-o-orning!_

"Unfortunately," he adds softly to himself.

.

.

.

.

Zirah watches a swarm of ants struggle with a dead worm.

_...And my, Rusty's in fine form today, as he signals his teammate for support, oh, and Mandible _delivers_! They've spread the weight evenly between them now, but wait! Down at the back, Snappy is losing his grip! Gentlemen, I tell you time and again, I know a weak link when I see one!_

"Is this really how you spend your time?" Zirah asks blandly.

_Do you_ really_ want to start this conversation, Mr. Stalker-with-a-crush?_

Zirah frowns and scoots away from the wall, but the voice still comes through loud and clear.

_Hey, fair's fair. You wanted me on the defensive, I'm just returning the favour. Don't play with fire if you're afraid to get _burned_, son._

Zirah doesn't deign to comment, watching instead as the ants scatter, scrambling away in vain as a huge mammal flicks out its tongue to swipe them up.

_Hey, come on now. I bet your pet demon's back in the thick of it by now. Don't you want a peek?_

Zirah follows the plate-skinned ant-eater to the ant colony and watches it wreak havoc with the casual nonchalance of nature.

_Hmmm, I'll take that as a no. Wait, I take it back: I'll take that as 'I shouldn't', complete with pouty expression and all. What's the story behind that, anyway?_

Zirah stays silent.

_Come on, it's driving me craaazy. Haha. Yes, no wait. No, I'm sure he's just in a brooding mood. Don't be ridiculous, I was nothing like that. Hey. You want me to start singing again? 'Cause I'm getting the distinct impression that you don't, but look at you, getting me all queued up for the boredom roller coaster, ignoring me and everything-_

"You remind me of him, you know," Zirah says, more to himself.

_-That's much better! Wait, who?_

"Not...always, mind, but a certain word or turn of phrase here and there, the occasional oblique reference," Zirah continues absently, "I don't know for sure if it's me deluding myself, or wishful thinking, or if it's simply me... turning you into him."

_Great, now you're starting to sound like the others. Well, go on now, don't let me stop you._

"Why does it matter so much to you, anyway?"

_I want to know._

"And why is that?"

_Are you kidding? Because it's the only thing that matters, in the end. The only thing that's worth something. _

"Gossip?"

_Stories, silly. How something went down, from beginning to end, with all the juicy, gory little details, told from a million billion sides. Knowledge, when it comes down to it. The people, the places, all that's rubbish, but can you honestly imagine anything worth more than the story itself? Anything more everlasting, more valuable, more important than _knowing the story_?_

Zirah is deathly silent for a long time. Then he asks, smiling humourlessly, "Would you like to make a deal?"

_A deal? A deal! Hah! Well, I suppose so, where could the harm be, after all? What have I got to lose? Well, obviously, I meant besides that. Shut up. Sorry, I was just... you were saying? I mean, I haven't got much to offer in the soul department, I don't think so. What terms are we talking here?_

"My story..."

_Yes, and...?_

"...in exchange for yours."

The ensuing silence is sharp enough to cut, and when it is broken, Zirah feels it all the way through the wall and the dark and hollow space of the cavern.

_You _son of a bitch_. You just had to ask for that, didn't you? What makes you-... what makes you think you deserve to know, huh? What makes you think _anyone_ deserves to know? Or cares, for that matter? What makes you think anyone cares? You selfish prick, you- Yes, you too! Stop it! Stop saying that! Stop it NOW! You're wrong. Yes I can! I can I can I can! I know! I know what... what..._

Then the voice does something it hasn't done in a while, namely sputter and burn itself out.

"Fair's fair," Zirah mutters into the silence.

The images flicker and blink out.

.

.

.

.

In the time he waits for the voice to come back – he doesn't _wait_, of course, he is merely anticipating the inevitable – Zirah takes the chance to come back to civilisation again and turns his gaze to the human cities, diminished and fraught with strife and catastrophe as they always are.

It is only a matter of time before he finds the demon. He jumps manically between listless wandering and throwing himself into his current assignment with single-minded zeal. In the evenings, he gets drunk. Frequently, and into utter oblivion.

_You could do it, you know_, the voice says, even though it's too early for it._ You could have him brought here. You could ask for anything, anything at all. He won't dare refuse._

Zirah stares at the nearly familiar planes of the face, tousled dark hair, cheekbones and all.

"I could," he echoes.

It is nothing but the truth, after all.

.

.

.

He makes himself look away eventually, turn to watch other humans – other demons, even, but their lives are of little interest to him.

_Did you know the platypus is a mammal that lays eggs and has a poisonous spur on each hind foot?_

Zirah smiles. "No, I didn't. Where did you hear such a thing?"

_Nature show. Australia, of course. Well, once upon a time. Used to be able to watch anything out there. Now, not so much. Too far away, what little there is. There's just you. Through you, really. No television yet, right?_

"I'm afraid not."

_What about theatre?_

"I'm honestly not sure."

_Well friggin' find out, will you? Speaking of, what's the word on Romeo?_

"I don't know."

_Come ooon, don't tell me you haven't checked up on him. I won't believe you anyway. No, he's lying. Yes, that's what I just said._

Zirah idly sifts through the images flooding the wall. "This looks something like a gladiatorial arena," he notes. "I'm sure they must have theatre _somewhere_."

_Meh, violence gets old after a while. Hey, why is it that whenever I bring up those two lovebirds you start avoiding the question?_

"I don't see what concern it is of yours."

_Well, for starters, you're stuck with me, so might as well spill. Hey, is that-? Well, speak of the friggin' devil, hah!_

Zirah leans forward anxiously. There is a hooded figure watcing the gladiators furtively, glancing around at the crowd every now and then, hand resting lightly on a scabbard.

_Isn't that the angel? Sure haven't seen _him _in a while. What d' you reckon he's doing there?_

The angel's shoulders are held in a tense line and his face looks hunted. As Zirah watches, he turns and strides out, away from the arena, and is soon joined by two others. They take off into the air, the other angels flanking him on either side.

_Ooh, ominous!_

Zirah sighs.

"They're more than just a story, you know."

_Trust me, honey - there's no such thing._

_.  
_

_.  
_

_.  
_

Zirah caves, eventually, and seeks out the demon, who turns out to be more or less precisely on the other side of the planet as the angel – listless and nervous and, as far as he can tell, no wiser to the angel's whereabouts than he was a century or two ago.

The voice, for once, has better things to do than taunt him about it, but that is something of a mixed blessing.

_Chain 'im to a cliff till he learns 'is lesson, chain 'im to a cliff till he learns 'is lesson, chain 'im to a mountain till he learns 'is lesson early in the mo-o-o-orning!_

_Way hey, and up she rises, way hey, and up she rises, way hey and up she rises early in the mo-o-o-rning!_

_Send a bunch o' birds to chomp his liver, send a bunch o' birds to chomp his liver, send a bunch o' birds to chomp his liver early in the mo-o-o-o-rning!_

The angel and his cohorts travel through the cities, seek out den after villainous den, sifting through the scum and vermin and the nests they have scraped out of the dirt. Their passage is marked by smitings and smoking ruins, only naked ground left where hives of corruption and debauchery used to be. The angel wears a perpetually cornered expression while his guards grow more impatient with every town they leave behind.

Zirah watches this dance go on for some years.

In the back of his cell, his mind, his soul – if there's a difference – the other voice diligently performs the four hundred verses of What Shall We Do With the Fallen Angel, in descending order of quality and inventiveness, along with five dozen or so newly improvised ones, before going back and experimenting with different combinations.

Head tucked against his knees, Zirah watches the images and quietly wonders if madness is a self-propagating spiral – if the voices one hears are merely the reflection of it, or indeed the cause.

_Don't be absurd, angel. This is real, _a voice says behind him.

He turns to look.

His eyes fall on snakeskin shoes.

Zirah stares blankly at the expensive designer leather, then trails his gaze up perfectly tailored trousers, a snakeskin belt, the edges of a classy shirt left artfully untucked, an unbuttoned suit and loosened tie, collarbones, throat, jugular, pointed chin – but the face is _wrong, all wrong_, with eyes the wrong shade of gold and the pupils too narrow and the nose and mouth too shapeless, shifting like wet clay even as he looks.

"No... no no no no no," he begins to mutter frantically. "I remember, I remember, I-I... _I remember you_!"

_What you see is what you get, angel. Or maybe I shouldn't call you that anymore?_ The figure grins, spreading his hands, and the teeth are all the wrong shade of white, too clinical and poisonous and vicious, and even the voice is off – _even the voice_ – and how could he not have noticed that sooner?

Zirah swallows and looks away, but the figure is still horribly _there_, he knows it, even as the other voice's cacophony fills his ears.

"No, no, no, please," he whispers, hiding his head and squeezing his eyes shut, not that it helps, not that it changes _anything_. _"_Please_. Please_."

.

.

.

.

A different moment arrives, eventually, a moment when the figure is gone and the voice has dwindled off to absent remarks, and none of it feels as relieving as it should.

Zirah stands upright, his hand pressed into the smooth, worn surface of the wall, and commands the demon kneeling on the other side, "Have him brought to me."

The ever-present voice breaks off at that, turning its attention to him excitedly. _Ooh, is something happening? Sounds like something's happening!_

Zirah smiles bleakly. "Would you like to get something for nothing?"

_Boy, would I ever!_

"He's the reason I'm down here."

_And the plot thickens! How's that then, eh?_

"He was a bribe, for me to come quietly. Likely more a symbolic gesture than anything. But, well. I had a choice, and I chose him. And this place, for me."

_That was at once fascinating while making no sense at all, you know._

"I suppose that's true. I am not sharing this for _you r_benefit, you understand. No offence intended."

_Nah, used to it by now. Yeah, I know, right? My thoughts exactly. What if you'd chosen something else?_

"The war would have lasted longer, that's all. At the end of the day, in all likelihood I'd still be here.. Not much of a difference, in the end. Except for him. I doubt he'd still exist."

_Sounds like a hefty debt he's got hanging over his head, doesn't it?_

"Something like that," Zirah says distractedly, as the image in the glass clears again, and he goes quite still.

"L-lord Zirah," the demon chokes, head bowed. Zirah draws in a breath and stares unblinkingly at what passes for the demon's form down here, at once a mirror of his corporation and something else entirely. There's an echo of tousled dark hair and lithe shoulders, hands clutched tightly, smooth and angular face half-hidden. At this angle, if he squinted...

Zirah gingerly steps closer to the glass, reaching out toward it unconsciously. Cro-... Gliss flinches, raising his head sharply, and Zirah freezes. The eyes are are a deep red and one could look past that, really, but they're wide and unblinking, face and body alike frozen in tightly controlled terror, and suddenly all sense of familiarity is gone, because he's seen that look, he remembers that look, but not directed at him, never at _him._..

Zirah exhales with a shudder and takes a slow, deliberate step back.

On the other side of the glass, the demon fidgets nervously, alternating between staring at the floor and sneaking glances up at him.

"L-l... Lord?" he utters eventually, cringing even as he does. "Was there... um, was there something you wanted?"

"...No," Zirah mutters – _not from you –_ and he must have said that aloud, because the demon shifts in confusion, so he collects himself and adds, "Only to commend you on your efforts with corrupting mankind," and he has a difficult time keeping his face straight at that, he does, because he still remembers dinners shared over wine and rambling accounts of the quirks of their respective superiors, and it's hard not to find that ironic, at this point, considering.

"Uh." The demon blinks slowly at him, eyes wide. "Sure. Er. G-glad to, er, glad to ssserve."

"You may go," Zirah says quietly.

The demon is visibly eager to do just that, but he stays, looking as though caught between a dozen different fight-or-flight impulses. He looks up cagily at Zirah, swallows, swallows again, and finally grinds out, sounding terrified and incredulous at himself,

"Um. If it isn't too much trouble.. That is- that is, if your generosity will permit... Ssspeaking of corrupting the humanity... could I... maybe... ask for a fav-... er, sssome asssisstance? Er, no, well, more of a tip, really. Vague... advice?" he trails off, shrinking further and further into himself, but doesn't look away.

Zirah contemplates him quietly. He doesn't know where this is going, and it is a fascinating change of pace. "Go on, dear," he says gently, and the demon blinks in startlement at that, but plunges on anyway.

"My... my heavenly counterpart. Er, main enemy. Heaven's agent on Earth. I, er, haven't been able to keep track of him recently, so, er, Heav-, er, well, You know what kind of do-goodery he must have been getting up to all by himself, so I just thought, maybe, if it's not too much trouble, you could, er, point me... in the right direction?" he finishes with a wince, shaking visibly.

Zirah stares. Then he shakes silently, fighting the urge to laugh. He wonders if they had ever been so transparent. They must have been.

The demon is still waiting for an answer, and Zirah would be remiss not to give him one. "He has been back on Earth for some years now. Two of his brothers are with him. They were last seen in the city of Seventowers."

The demon laps up his words hungrily, his face twisting in sympathy before he catches himself, lets it fall impassive.

"Thank you, Lord," he says solemnly, earnestly, bowing down again.

"Go," Zirah says softly, and watches the demon rise reverently to his feet.

"Be careful," he amends, but the image has already gone blank.

.

.

.

_Nice going, angel, _a snide voice says, and he knows that if he looks he will see that figure again, all wrong, so he doesn't, and stares at the blank wall until it goes away.

Afterwards, he watches the images shift and coalesce into a city view and feels light and oddly heavy all at once. The demon skulks through the writhing mass of it, avoiding the seedier parts, hiding in plain sight in crowds and busy streets, making himself as small as possible, his personal aura all but untraceable to any but the most intimately familiar.

_This can't end well, you know,_ he hears and starts, but it is not _the figure_, it is merely the voice he has been hearing all along now, so he relaxes, keeping his attention on the view in front of him. _Nothing ends well, at that,_ the voice rambles on, _when it comes down to it. It's why I'd pick knowledge over eternal life any day of the week. At least with the former, there's a slip of a _chance_ you're not being sold a bridge._

A perversely curious part of him wants to ask about that, but it doesn't matter – not now, not anymore. Not when the angel is strung like a violin, tensing and jumping at the slightest shadow, all terse nods and nervous smiles for his cohorts.

It only takes him hours to slip away from them, his own strength of presence carefully dwindling down to no more than a blip on the proverbial radar. Another hour to locate the demon hovering in the shadow of a tower, both public and out of sight.

Zirah watches the angel's haunted mask crack, sees him rain down sharp words at the other, angry and anxious even as the demon is hopeful, placating, manically cheerful. Zirah watches as the angel whips out his sword, grabbing the demon with the other hand and pulling him close, showing him how the blade catches the light, making him almost touch it until he feels the painful thrum of it under his fingers, rambling furiously into his ear even as the demon stares, transfixed.

Zirah sits back and watches as the angel's volley of demands simmers down to a desperate whisper, as he takes the demon's face in his hands, palms cradled gently on either side of his jaw, pleading with him as one would with a skittish animal.

„No, no, they wouldn't," Zirah whispers, aghast. "There is... a truce, after all. They cannot simply..."

The demon rides away in the throng of travellers streaming in and out of the city, just another speck among hundreds. He looks back, sharp eyes picking out the two bright figures perched on a church, hands testing the edges of their blades while a third one watches unhappily nearby. Reluctantly, the third draws his own sword and holds it high.

It flares with holy fire, as clear a signal as any.

The demon shudders and spurs his horse.

.

.

.

.

They catch him, in the end. It is only inevitable.

Zirah knows this because it has already happened once, he has already seen it play out on one side, but that had been easy to solve, wished away with a word and a gesture. The angel's superiors are not so compassionate.

They catch him because the demon can't well and truly keep away, not when the angel and his cohorts keep striding through the land, cleansing and smiting, holy and merciless.

And so the demon takes a foolish risk, sneaks close, far too close, meaning to steal his angel out from under them, because wouldn't it make more sense to be on the run together?

_This could get messy. You might not want to watch, _the voice says, not entirely without sympathy. Zirah sits back, frozen as the demon is chased across rooftops, knocked down, thrown one way and another.

The demon hisses in pain as the holy blade clips his shoulder, tries to dance out of the way, call out to his angel, but Azariel is helpless, held back by one of his brothers while the other hefts the sword, ready to advance.

"No," he says in a hollow voice, standing up.

_Hey now, let's not do anything stupid, okay?_

"I cannot just watch," Zirah mutters to himself.

He strides toward the wall with the images. For a moment he stares at it, eyes blazing. Then he slams his hand against it as if trying to sink it in, and the wall shudders, waves of something other than sound emanating in all directions. He feels it breathe and shake under his fingers, like a tearing membrane.

It's harder than it was last time. Last time had been flailing, and cold anger, and desperation, and not truly expecting to achieve anything, but now he knows everything that can go wrong, knows how difficult it is.

He pushes through anyway, and a part of him tears free.

.

.

.

.

.

He is falling, or pulling himself up, he isn't sure which, and does it really matter? There's nothing and then there's everything, in overwhelming, deafening abundance, and he lets himself stream through it all, up, down, in every direction but where he came from.

There's no conveniently vacant body this time, no vessel to hold him.

Except one.

He surges into the demon and feels him squeak in fear before suffocating.

There is bright, bright light everywhere around him, and colours, and actual, tangible _sound,_ and he slowly curls and uncurls his fingers, astounded by the sensation.

He blinks slowly at the surprised angel in front of him, and smiles.

"You!" the angel gasps. "This cannot be, you are trapped - _trapped_-"

|_And you should know better than step so close to the cage,_| he hisses, his fingers curling into claws.

The second angel releases his captive and treads closer, blade held aloft.

He cuts through them both like a knife.

.

.

.

.

.

Soon after, there is a sensation of falling.

.

.

.

.

.

.

_Hey. Hey. Hey, you there? Ugh. Well, great. Now what? Now what?_

_Hellloooo! Are you there or aren't you? Pretty sure you're there. Not ignoring me again, are you? He must be. Like I said – no common sense at all. You'd think he had his own entertainment centre down there, the way he's going. Haha, no, I never had one of those. Hey, don't ask me, I wouldn't know. Hm. That's a ridiculous suggestion. Oh, I know, I know!_

_I got you babe... yeah, yeah, uh-huh... I got you babe.. Hello?_

Zirah shudders. It's the only thing he can quite manage at the moment, it seems. He does it again for good measure.

He opens his mouth to speak, closes it. Tries to think of something to say. Everything seems very empty.

He opens his eyes, blinks, adjusts them to the peculiar variety of not-vision he practices here.

Finally, he remembers where he is.

"Oh," he says flatly.

_Lo and behold, it's a miracle! Wasn't sure I'd hear from _you_ again, to be honest. Rise and shine, rise and shine._

It occurs to him to sit up.

"What happened?"

_Don't you remember?_

For a long, long moment, his mind is blank and he stays frozen in horror, then sags at once with dread and relief, scrambles to the wall, slaps his hands onto it until he feels it thrumming and changing under his fingers.

_Whoa, might want to take it easy there, bucko..._"

What happened? Is... Are they... What happened?"

_How should I know? I can't exactly lift the curtain all by me lonesome._

"Come on," he whispers urgently, shuddering with effort. The image that forms under his fingers is pale, chaotic, but he stares deep and unblinking, committing it to his mind.

There is a brief clarity, and he sees the demon curled up on his side, looking drawn and feverish, a wound across his stomach leaking steam and black smoke.

He sees the angel fretting over him before the image shudders and bubbles away, and he sags against the wall, exhausted.

Zirah trembles and rubs his face, his eyes, his temples.

"How... how long has it been?" he whispers hoarsely.

_What, till you started saying stuff again? I dunno. Long._

"They haven't stopped, then," he says softly. "They shall not give up until he is dead, and the angel theirs again. And they will make him watch."

_Aren't you just a ray of sunshine. What'cha gonna do about it, then? You won't be pulling _that_ trick again any time soon. If ever, at that._

"I don't know," Zirah says. "This is all wrong... They're not meant to be... Those were heaven's weapons! Genuine ones! They're not meant to be wielding that on Earth!"

_So a bunch of chickens decided to go and up the ante._

"What does that even mean?' he asks wearily.

_You're frustrating sometimes, you know that? Yeah, I'm pretty sure he does. Yeah, I'm sure he's been told that again and again._

Zirah shudders again, buries his face in his hands. "I need to do something," he says frantically. "I need to help them. I... yes, I will command the Fallen, they will...

He straightens up, staggers to the wall. For a long time there is only silence and furious, concentrated thought.

Zirah breathes out shakily, steps back, lowers his hand with a tremor. "I cannot contact them," he mutters to himself. "I cannot... why isn't it...?"

_Huh, I thought that might happen. Really takes a lot out of you, doesn't it? Literally. Haha. Especially if you try to make it a habit. Believe me, I know. You still know who I am, right? Yeah? Great, just checking._

Zirah slowly sits himself down, silent.

A handspan away, the wall of stone is smooth, blank and impenetrable.

.

.

.

.

Silence hangs, broken only be the voice's periodic comments.

Zirah sits with his back against the wall, but there is nothing, not even a quiver.

_Hey now, think of it as a liberating experience. Isn't it nice to take a break from your obsession?_

The wall is cold and heavy with the reality of substance, the patches under his fingers worn smooth like frozen silk.

_No, really, it's healthy to try and find other ways to pass the time every now and then. Place like this, we need to take every grab at 'healthy' we can get, don't you think?_

He keeps expecting _the figure_ to appear, with its litany of taunts, voice and face and smile just on the wrong edge of familiar, but it doesn't come.

It's starting to worry him.

_Wanna play a game? I'd offer, but for some reason you don't seem like up to chatting right now, to be honest._

"I wonder if they're still alive," he says aloud.

_Who? Oh, right! So do I. We could flip a coin, if you want. Or one of those fancy many-sided dice. Huh, yeah, that's right, remember those? Shut up, I wasn't talking to you. Well, too bad we haven't got any of those._

Zirah screws his eyes shut and shifts nervously. "I should be able to do _something_," he mutters.

_Yeah, well, you're out of juice, so get used to it._

"I have enough strength left to talk to _you_, though, don't I? You seem... clearer than ever."

_That's different - I think we're on the same wavelength or something, finally. Makes sense, you've been heading in the same direction for a while now._

"And what direction is that?" Zirah asks wearily.

_Take a wild guess._

Zirah sighs and turns away.

_Hey, come on, don't go all depressed. That's your problem, you know – you're too invested. You can't let yourself get too invested. Like I said – sentiment. What's it matter to you, anyway?_

Zirah is silent for a very long time, staring into space. Finally, he collects himself.

"An old injustice," he says slowly. "A friend."

The voice responds with a silence that rings curious, then asks, and Zirah can feel it tremble against his temples,

_What was his name?_

Zirah hesitates, guarded. Then, a whisper of confusion swims across his mind.

His eyes fly wide open. His fingers tighten helplessly against the wall.

He stays silent.

_Hey, is something wrong? That sounded a bit different than your usual 'I am so broody and enigmatic' type of not saying anything._

"...I-it doesn't matter," Zirah grinds out, then begins to shake as he looks in on himself, finds his memory patchy and unclear in places it shouldn't be. "This... this doesn't make sense. I got it back, all of it, it was mine to keep, it's supposed to be mine..."

_Oh. O-oh! Oh, you silly goose. Didn't you know? That's the deal about secrets. You keep them buried long enough, sometimes you can't dig them back up. They... decompose, I think. Fungi and worms and all that stuff, and can't forget the microscopic little buggers, either._

"B-but... but why? Why?" Zirah whispers frantically, curling into tight ball.

_Like I said, trying to hop out and about takes a lot out of you. You're stuck here, sugar. No amount of reaching across the Veil is going to change that. You try to stretch yourself thin, you're bound to lose some pieces, know what I mean?_

"Is that what happened to you?" Zirah mouths, eyes shut.

There is the longest silence and he expects anger, he does...

_What happened to me? You don't know. You can't know. Don't talk about it. Don't ask about it. Don't change the subject. We shouldn't talk about it. We should talk about _you. _We should talk about what happened to _you_. We should talk about how you're going to be stuck here forever and ever, until the end of time, and possibly even longer, possibly even after it's finished and come back for another loop! How you're going to watch and listen and maybe even order your little army of gnats around but it won't freakin' matter because it's all wrong, and nothing's turned out the way it was supposed to! And eventually you'll splinter apart piece by piece, pearl by friggin' pearl, until all that's left of you is the string! We should talk about THAT, and how it's all YOUR FAULT!_

"_STOP IT!_" Zirah screams, lashing out violently against the wall.

It thrums sharply, for the first time in far too long, and more than ever before, there is an overwhelming sense of _something_ just on the other side, if he could tilt his head and squint, peel it off at just the right spot...

Eyes wide, Zirah reaches out and pushes _through._

It would be wrong to say that a doorway opens, because doorways are simple, but for a moment it is like flailing around blindly and then having your fingers catch on another's hand and pulling yourself in, determined, in that particular direction. And suddenly two separate places that are neither real places nor truly separate become one.

Zirah breathes in, out, and shakes himself, aware that something has changed.

He looks down to the presence – figure – _person_ sitting hunched on the floor, a vaguely man-shaped being who stares back at him with bewildered eyes. "...Holy crap, you're real," he says.

"Oh dear. So are you," Zirah breathes, and very carefully slides down.

.

.

.

.

It is cold and silent, but Zirah does not care to notice.

For a long while, they simply stare at one another. Zirah wonders if he'd jumped to conclusions – if the figure opposite him _is_ indeed real – who, in turn, seems to be wondering the same – but the odd sense of something _other_, of intrusion and a strange sort of crowdedness in the air is unmistakable.

The man looks worn out the way old cloth can appear when it's been through too much, shorn down by too much friction to a thin, half-transparent layer.

The man is the first to break the silence.

"Well then," he says slowly. "I guess the good news is that I don't _actually_ have a split personality fragment with a penchant for _that_ level of melodrama. Anyone else here feel like outing themselves?" he asks loudly, and when Zirah looks at him in bewilderment, he grins nervously, "Well okay, that was a bit awkward."

Zirah blinks slowly at him. Even worn out, there is a stunning, luminously intense quality to his features and the way he holds himself, a miniature sun in the final phase of its lifespan - the kind of overwhelming charisma all leaders can only dream of.

Something about him feels hauntingly familiar – like the instant, gut-churning recognition of a wolf's ear-splitting howl.

Zirah feels himself go numb, then relaxes, an icy calm washing over him.

"Lucifer," he says.

The Adversary stares at him for a moment, then chuckles, chest shaking with laughter. He slaps himself on the forehead in a comic, careless gesture. "Right, so _that_ was the name," he grins and Zirah can't help but flinch. "And you are...?"

"...Zirah," he answers, swallowing.

"Ah, I like the ones with the z's. Very stylish," he nods approvingly.

Zirah watches him, transfixed.

"How is it you are still..."

"Alive?" he smiles bitterly, daring him to use that word.

Zirah swallows. "Present."

"Hey, I'm not friggin' omniscient. My best guess? That thing you just did, you weren't supposed to be able to do that. Or I wasn't supposed to still be there. They all fade away eventually, I think. Even the swiftest execution takes time. It's just not supposed to take _that _long."

"There have been... others?"

"Seems like it," Lucifer nods. "It can get a bit hard to separate them from... you know..." he gestures around him, as if at unseen eavesdroppers, and Zirah nods.

"But why...?"

"Why not just... be done with it?" Lucifer makes a slashing motion at his neck and smiles. "Probably because it's too easy? Hey, beats me. Who am I to question ineffability?"

Zirah shudders and feels something inside him go still. "You started the Apocalypse," he says, narrowing his eyes accusingly.

"Correction: I played my part in starting _an_ Apocalypse."

"You wanted the Earth destroyed!"

"I just wanted it to be over," Lucifer says, voice hollow, and Zirah goes quite silent at that.

After a long time, he asks, very quietly, "What happened to you? Why did you... Fall?"

Lucifer looks at him levelly, calmly, without a trace of humour. There is a spark of the usual anger, of defiance, but it quickly gutters out, replaced by something far more tired and aged.

Zirah stares into colourless grey eyes and doesn't look away.

"I don't remember," Lucifer says simply, the unclad frankness of it hanging between them like something ugly and uncomfortable. Zirah doesn't look away, even as his fingers twitch.

Lucifer grins bitterly. "I don't remember, okay?" he says again, as if trying to push that thought away from him now that it's out. "I did, once. I remembered for a long time. Not anymore. I don't remember when I forgot, but... there it is. I stopped thinking about it, something like that. Didn't want to. It was... unpleasant to contemplate, so I didn't. Lesson learned: Hiding from yourself doesn't make things better."

"No, it doesn't," Zirah echoes.

"Can you imagine?" Lucifer shakes his head, scooting closer conspiratorially. "Can you imagine that? Not knowing? Not remembering the single – the most important thing that ever happened to you?"

"...Yes," Zirah murmurs, a chill sweeping over him.

Lucifer looks at him, gaze penetrating and unblinking. "You remember why _you _Fell, though, now don't you?" he challenges.

Zirah is silent for a tense, soul-searching moment.

He nods.

"Good," Lucifer smiles bitterly. "Keep it that way." Suddenly his eyes are sharp. "Oh, I get it now. You're the replacement, yes?"

"Replacement?" Zirah blinks.

"The new meat. The successor. The Dread Pirate Roberts."

"Er, who?"

Lucifer squints suspiciously at him, shakes his head. "I swear, nine times out of ten you lot are utterly hopeless. He turns serious again, holding his gaze. "The Adversary."

Zirah stares. "...Yes," he says quietly. The admission rings heavy but true. Then he adds tentatively, "I didn't know there was meant to be more than one..."

"Are you kidding? Good against evil. Blue against red. Mac against Windows. There is _always_ an Adversary. There can't be a story without one."

Zirah shakes his head in disbelief. "It's not _all_ about the story, you know," he says primly.

Lucifer gives him a cold smile. "It is to Him," he says, jerking a finger upwards.

Zirah pales and fails to answer.

"He... he wouldn't play games like that," he manages finally, without much conviction. "Not _that_ cruel, I shouldn't think. He... He may have made some questionable, callous decisions, but He can't be..."

"Jesus H. Christ, don't tell me you've still got a shred of faith? Down here?" Lucifer laughs harshly, incredulous. "Even now, you still think it's all going to turn out okay? That it's all part of the big Plan?"

"...I think it's marginally more reassuring than the alternative," Zirah says barely.

Suddenly Lucifer gapes at him, then laughs in disbelief.

"No. _No._ Don't tell me- Holy crap, you _are_. So _that's_ what's been ticking me off. I _do_ know you. I _remember _you, back from Before." Zirah looks up, startled, but he plunges on. "You're _the angel._ The one with the flaming sword scandal. The one who... Oh man, _this_ is a turn-up! I've always wondered what you must be like, to steal away a demon from me, just like that. Sword and tire iron, man, that was _good_."

Zirah tenses, his breath catching, and stays silent.

Lucifer raises his eyebrows. "And now you- Oh. _Oh_. Now it's all starting to make sense. Well, I'll give you points for dramatic irony, if nothing else, you know-"

"Don't," Zirah manages, a single, tired sound.

Lucifer stops and looks at him. "Fine," he says quietly, and it's like he's burned himself out just a little more. "Fine. You've convinced me."

"I have?" Zirah asks warily.

"Yes." Lucifer slumps a little, looks away, and when he looks back his eyes are frightfully intense. "You're needed topside, you know," he says quietly.

"...There's nothing I can do."

"Oh, I wouldn't say _that_," he says with a slow, cunning smile.

Lucifer climbs to his feet, movement slow and formal, and after a moment Zirah follows suit.

The Adversary looks around, sweeps his gaze over everything there is to see. There's not much. Finally he looks back to Zirah.

"Now the way I figure, this place is made to keep _you _in, and it's made to keep _me _in, but there's no telling what might happen if we shake things up a little. I've still got some kick in me, you know. Enough for the final act. For something _showy_. It isn't doing _me_ a fat lot of good, but _you,_ you're still pretty fresh... pretty whole, relatively speaking. I figure it could give _you_ just enough of an edge to ride the tide well the Hell out of here, and if I can rub His nose in the dirt one last time, so much the better. Plus there's the whole sappy 'forbidden love' aspect of it, and I hate to admit it, but between you two and the other ones you've got me sold on _that_. Savvy?"

Zirah looks at him, stunned. Very slowly, he nods and swallows. "I believe so, yes. And what... happens to you?"

Lucifer smiles.

"Something I've wanted for a very long time."

Zirah is quiet. Eventually he nods again.

Lucifer steps close, eyes burning into his. He extends a hand and Zirah takes it. It feels like touching snow lit white by the sun.

"Thank you," he murmurs.

Lucifer smiles.

"Give 'em Hell from me, angel."

It is like swallowing a star.

.

.

.

.

.

.

It is cold here, deep in the bowels of the Earth, and plain and blank and featureless.

It tears easier than a dusty cobweb.

Zirah surges up and doesn't look back.

His army is following him before long.

He tastes sunlight and air again, and it burns him, but he burns brighter still.

He spares one quiet moment to shift across the Earth, and the demon looks like he wants to flee and the angel looks like he wants to fight, wings folding protectively over them both, and he speaks only a single word to them, 'Hide', before stepping back and far, far away.

The heavens burn again for the first time in aeons.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

He is burning himself out, slowly but surely – and yet, much like a falling comet, he thrives on the friction, the conflict of it all, his name invoked in worship all across the world, knowingly and unknowingly, in words and deeds alike.

He watches angels burn up and demons turn to steam while the Earth below is torn and ravaged, until the moment comes.

"Parlay," a messenger tells him tersely, not even daring to look him in the eye, and he has a moment to wonder which side had come up with that one.

"I accept," he answers.

They meet in the ruins of a city, where holy ground crosses into a graveyard of bones and ash.

The Metatron blazes sternly as ever, but it is a silly, pretentious solemnity. Difficult to imagine how he had ever found him intimidating.

"_Flamebringer_. We had an agreement," the Metatron speaks – he's good for little else, after all.

"We did," Zirah agrees mildly. "Perhaps a re-negotiation is in order."

"Do you wish the world destroyed?"

"Do you?" Zirah smiles.

"We owe you no answer, save that it is not written that it should happen now."

Zirah snorts softly.

"We have another offer for you," the Metatron continues. "And you _will _accept it."

The ranks of the angels part to show two figures. Zirah keeps his face impassive to see them huddled together, the demon twisting in pain in the face of so much holiness. It is hardly a surprise, after all.

"I see," he says calmly.

"It was easy enough to recognise your weakness, bizarre as it is."

"You would threaten one of your own?"

"Azariel has not been one of our own for a very long time."

"Yet he remains an angel," Zirah notes softly.

"He is not the root of the problem. Enough. Stand down, or they shall be erased from existence."

"If they are, you shall be next to follow," Zirah returns swiftly.

The Metatron watches him warily. It is so much more than a bluff, after all.

"I have a counter-offer," Zirah says pleasantly.

"We will hear it."

"Keep the Earth, for as long as you want, I will not stand in your way. But you _will_ let them go, and then you will leave them be, forever, and neither hinder nor try to separate them ever again."

"Forever?"

"_Forever,_" Zirah repeats forcefully. It is a loaded clause and he knows it. It is unconditional, regardless of what happens in the future, regardless of any Apocalypse. It is as much as he can give them, for now.

"...And in return?" the Metatron asks, voice heavy and momentous.

Zirah smiles. "Me."

"...Your armies-"

"...Are free to do as they will. I trust you will find the counterweight useful to have around, though."

For the longest time, there is only silence, the armies in the distance watching with bated breath – proverbially speaking, for all but a few of them.

"We accept."

Zirah nods and gestures and his army disperses. They have no need to see this. Opposite him, the ranks of the Heavenly Host thin and vanish. Two figures remain, watching him while doing their best to make themselves as small as possible.

He nods at them once and holds their faces in his mind before looking away, and doesn't turn to them again.

The Metatron draws close, form shifting to something tangible enough to hold a sword.

"At long last, you shall pay for your mistakes," he intones.

Zirah looks up at him unflinchingly. "The only mistake I ever made was leaving his side on the day it all fell apart," he says, voice quiet and clear, and drops slowly to his knees, bowing his head in expectation.

He expects surly confusion – the Metatron doesn't remember, doesn't _know_ what any of it means – but instead there's an odd, almost recognisable shift in his presence, and the voice he hears then sounds different,

NOW THERE'S A THOUGHT. NOT A BAD THING TO TAKE AWAY FROM ALL THIS, DON'T YOU THINK?

Zirah looks up, but the figure glows brighter than ever, and even he has to avert his gaze.

He sees the sword move and closes his eyes.

But there is only the touch of a hand.

HONESTLY, NOTHING BUT TROUBLE, YOU TWO, he hears, before it all goes blank.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

He smells wine.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

_Wine?_

It throws him enough that he turns, blinking owlishly at the basket balanced precariously on the ledge. There are wine bottles in it, sure enough. One of them just recently opened, but untouched. He draws another shaky breath – yes, wine, and ozone, and clouds heavy with smog and a touch of sulphur – and twitches his fingers against the feeling of something smooth and plastic in his hand, the shape vaguely familiar. Abruptly he knows his legs are dangling into space, and flails reflexively with a small squawk, nearly overbalancing, and fingers close steel-like on his arm-

He looks up into golden eyes and his mind very quickly stutters through a halt.

"Crowley," he chokes.

"Er."

Crowley – _Crowley _is staring at him, eyes very wide and face very still and ashen.

He's dropped the sunglasses. He briefly glances down to see them disappear into the black, then back at... _Crowley_. The demon still has five fingers closed on his arm like an industrial clamp.

He wonders why it feels like he hasn't spoken his name in ages.

Then remembers very abruptly that it's true. The memories stare back at him like a fading dream, not quite forgotten and not quite touching. Probably for the best.

"Oh dear," he says, very softly.

Crowley is still staring at him. His dark hair is dishevelled towards the left side and one eyebrow is slightly thicker than the other. His eyes are the deep, soothing shade of sunlight on tarnished gold.

By now, surely he should have said something sardonic, or removed his hand. But he hasn't.

The hand, warm and painfully tight and very real, is starting to cut off circulation.

Aziraphale makes a choked sound and pulls him into a hug.

He gets as far as wrapping one arm awkwardly around his torso and navigating around his wings while the other flails slightly in the demon's grip, and pulls him close and leans against him, squeezing his eyes shut and burying his face against his shoulder.

For a moment he feels Crowley's breath on his cheek, feels it hitch and stutter, and goes utterly still, his blood very nearly turning to ice – but then the demon breathes in again, shakily, and breathes out, and then takes another breath, and again, and again, and Aziraphale isn't sure which of them is shaking but suspects it might be both.

"A-angel," Crowley grunts, his voice hoarse and scraping. "Az-... _Aziraphale_. W-what..."

Aziraphale draws a deep breath (cigarette smoke and sulphur and upholstery leather, even now) and makes sure his voice is steady when he replies, muffled in the folds of a designer jacket, "My dear... I have not seen you in a very long time."

Crowley shudders a bit at that and he feels his chest shake in nervous laughter. "C-come on, you can't mean tha-"

Aziraphale looks up to meet his eyes.

"-Oh shit, you actually do_._"

Aziraphale slowly leans back, not yet letting go. Crowley's face is still white. His fingers don't seem like they'll unclench from the angel's arm any time soon.

"Uh. S-sssame here, I guessss," Crowley says with the sort of manic grin Aziraphale has dubbed the 'burning Bentley' expression.

Aziraphale stares.

"What happened?" Crowley asks, swallowing, before he can do the same.

"A lot of things," he manages to say. "Few of them good. And now it seems I'm back at the beginning."

Crowley laughs like he can't help himself. His free hand claws neurotically at the empty space on his lapels where his glasses would be, if they weren't feeding the fishes.

"You're telling me you got beamed back to ground zero like a bloody DeLorean?"

Aziraphale looks at him in silence.

Then he bursts out laughing, loud and helpless and not a little hysterical.

"Wha-... what is it?" Crowley asks, wide-eyed.

"My dear boy, I have absolutely no idea what you just said," Aziraphales beams and hugs him again. He feels more than hears Crowley giggle back, and laughs harder at that, even though the demon's shirt is crumpling and sticking into his mouth. He's not sure at what point his laughing turns to sobbing, but Crowley doesn't seem to mind.

The ground and the air and the very skies lurch, very suddenly. There is a flash. The wine basket tumbles off into the black. Abruptly, they remember when and where they are.

Aziraphel feels himself go still, eyes flying open against the fabric of Crowley's shirt.

"Oh," Aziraphale says.

"_No,_" Crowley hisses.

"No," Aziraphale agrees, looking up to meet his eyes as meteors hurtle past. "I think we should stay together no matter what, don't you, my dear?" he asks, voice deceptively calm.

Crowley laughs. "Yeah, I bloody figured _that_ much myself, you know. Come to think of it, looking back, isn't that when things usually started to go pear-shaped? I mean, think about back then, with you and the fire and me and the Pitchfork Mafia, probably could've been avoided if we'd just stuck together from the sta-"

There is a deep, pervading boom that precedes a shockwave and it spurs them on like lightning. Azirahale grips Crowley's hand and pulls them both down, and it takes them a moment to coordinate gigantic wingspans with flying hand-in-hand, but flying has never been about what's physically plausible, anyway, and very quickly they are sweeping upwards and dodging meteors while a mushroom cloud erupts in the distance.

"Okay, okay," Crowley mutters to himself. "We're gonna need a Plan B very quickly. No, ssscratch that, we're gonna need a Plan A."

Aziraphale says nothing, focusing on pulling them both up and away, as far as possible.

"Angel, we can't keep this up forever," Crowley hisses hysterically, batting out the fire that caught hold of the angel's wings. The air is starting to smell acidic and heavy. "We need some out-of-the-box thinking right bloody _now_."

Aziraphale frowns, distracted by the cacophony of grating metal as a skyscraper tumbles down somewhere beneath. "My dear, we are not _in_... a box..." He trails off, eyes going glazed.

"What isss it?" Crowley yells urgently. "What iss it, angel?"

Wings braced against the wind, Aziraphale slowly tilts his head back, lifting his gaze straight above, to where a tiny patch of stars peeks through the cloud cover.

"I think, my dear boy," Aziraphale says slowly, "that it is time for us to get out."

Crowley looks back at him, golden eyes incredulous. Aziraphale smiles and grips his hand tighter.

Through storms and shockwaves and rains of fire, they soar up, wings eating up the air, toward the patch of stars and beyond, until stars are all they see.

Then the air starts to go thin and Aziraphale makes no move to change direction. "Oh _no_," Crowley breathes, though it sounds more like admiration than denial. "Tell me you're joking."

He smiles. "Nobody ever said we can't."

There are no more clouds, eventually, only white and blue and grey behind them and the glittering expanse of the black everywhere else.

It is difficult to fly without decent air pressure.

They manage.

It is tricky to survive the unfiltered strength of the sun bearing down on your skin.

Unless you are very, _very_ good at ordering your skin around.

It is draining, and it is very, very exhausting.

"If this works," Crowley tells him, low and urgent, "We'll be away from... Him, you know. It might feel somewhat like.. Well, um..."

"I'm prepared for that," Aziraphale says, because how bad can it be when he's lived it all before?

He blinks and looks to Crowley as the last vestiges of Earthly air pass beneath their wings. "What happened?" he asks.

Crowley smiles ruefully. "A lot of things. I was sort of... in charge... for a while. Very messy. You wouldn't have liked it."

Aziraphale nods.

They both look down to Earth.

"Come on," Crowley says. "We've done all we can here. Let's see what else is out there."

With a final effort, they pull themselves free, into the wide expanse of nothing that beckoned to them so often over the years.

The sun burns, and it is silent, and empty, and very, very cold.

He has faced worse.

And yes, the sensation of leaving everything behind is so very close to Falling.

So close, but for the warm hand clasped in his.

.

.

.

.

.

.

But the emptiness tears at them, the whole universe pulling and them having so very little strength to pull back.

Their presence, once like that of miniature stars, dwindles down to an explosion.

To fire.

To a spark.

Until there is very little left.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

Human physicists liked to mess around with all sorts of things, back in the day.

How opposites react, for one.

There are two opposing trends going hand in hand – one of mutual destruction, and one of creation.

But perhaps there is not much difference between the two.

When matter and antimatter meet, they annihilate each other, and release a burst of energy equivalent to their masses.

Annihilation, however, is just a label – a line drawn in imaginary sand, between one state and another.

Whatever is left after such annihilation may be many things.

But it is not nothing.

.

.

.

.

.

.

Human poets enjoyed their messing around just as much, and often made more sense than the physicists.

A human, one of billions, had this to say about the joining of hands:

_Holding hands may seem like an innocent gesture, but they show more than a simple interlocking of fingers. Your hands are one of the most essential parts of your body: you build with them, feed with them, hold with them, touch with them, fight with them; they are the tools of the human body. To take a hold of another's hand is to break from living individually. It is to link yourself to another being, to momentarily entwine your life with another's, to promise, for a moment, that you need not face the world alone._

_.  
_

_.  
_

_.  
_

Two multi-dimensional, ethereally occult waves of energy travelling through spacetime may not have human bodies to speak of, as such.

But if they did, they would be holding hands.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

A nightingale sang in Berkeley square.

Hundreds of years later, and countless lightyears away, two men-shaped beings perch on the top of a spherical tower, feet digging in against freshly cut stone and wings spread up to shield them from the sun.

They look down to the mass of water and crystal and vibrant orange leaves, where vaguely bipedal shapes scramble in the dust, blue-tinted sunlight casting long shadows on the ground.

"They're going to drop it," Crowley says lazily, watching them struggle with a thick rope.

"Don't be silly, dear," Aziraphale huffs, leaning forward in anticipation.

"It's the first tablet with writing on it this world has _seen_, and they're going to _drop it_, angel."

Aziraphale frets silently, torn between conspicuously divine intervention and letting things play out in their natural course.

Crowley eyes him, then sighs, shutting his eyes against the sun and humming in contentment. "Relax, angel, there's nobody here."

"I'm not sure how that's possible," Aziraphale says quietly, leaning close.

"They evolved. Simple as that. Hey, the way I see it, He must have gotten his ideas _somewhere_, right? Don't worry. As far as I can tell, we're just about the the most blip-worthy thing on the local occult radar for the nearest buggerall around. Pass the wine, would you?"

As he does, the angel thinks of another temple, another sunrise, another bottle of wine.

"What came After... Do you reckon none of it happened, now?" he asks.

Crowley frowns, eyes still shut.

"Could be," he says in the laid-back voice of one not in the mood for existentialism. "Then again, by that logic, might as well say _nothing_ ever happened, _ever_." Having said that, he drapes himself over Aziraphale's chest in the casually occupying manner unique to cats, serpents, and overconfident empires.

The tablet isn't dropped.

Aziraphale tries not to feel too smug about that.

"We're alright now, angel," Crowley murmurs, already three quarters asleep.

"...I suppose we are." Aziraphale says softly, his face relaxing. He wraps his wings around them and squeezes Crowley's hand.

Crowley peeks up at him, a flicker of gold through dark lashes.

He smiles and squeezes back.


End file.
